Chupacabra’s Song is a prequel in the Magic Ex Libris series by American author, Jim C. Hines. It is set twenty years before Libriomancer. Fourteen-year-old Nicola Pallas is helping out in her father’s vet surgery when Mrs Boucher brings in an injured animal. At first it looks like a Labrador, but then Nicola sees the spines, the narrow, flattened head and the long teeth. Not a dog. But whatever it was, it had Nicola’s magic singing.

Then Frank and Martin turned up, her father and Mrs B were unconscious, and they had the creature in their SUV. A Chupacabra, they said. Nicola went along. They were after the rest of the pack. But when she understood what they intended, her rage at their cruelty gave her magic a power she had never before experienced. This short story is an excellent introduction to Nicola’s magic and how she came to breed chupacabras.